Synopses & Reviews
Nathaniel Mackey's sixth collection of poems, Blue Fasa, carries forward what the has described as the "mythological conception" and "descriptive daring" of his two intertwined serial poems. A long song that's one and more than one, this collection takes its title from two related black musical traditions, a West African griot epic as told by the Fasa, a clan in ancient Ghana, and trumpeter Kenny Dorham's hard bop classic "Blue Bossa," influenced by the emergence of Brazilian bossa nova. The book opens with , as it follows a band of travelers, refugees from history, on their incessant migrations through time, place, and polity toward a truer sense of being and belonging.
Review
"Nathaniel Mackey's poetry ambitiously continues an American bardic line that unfolds from to Pound's to H.D.'s to Olson's , winds through the whole of Robert Duncan's work, and extends beyond all of these. Mackey's words go where music goes: a brilliant and major accomplishment." Don Share
Review
"Mackey, winner of the 2006 National Book Award for poetry, "continues 's continuation of and the work that came before it" as he extends two interwoven and ongoing serial poems: Song of Andoumboulou and "Mu." Commanding in their cerebral and musical reach, the poems do not require knowledge of previous installments, though hints to the themes here are found in the collection's title, which references the West African griot tradition and jazz trumpeter Kenny Dorham's song "Blue Bossa." Mackey's epic mode is one in which place, time, and personae collide and shapeshift, rendering a definitive origin or conclusion somewhat irrelevant. [...] What exists always exists in relationship to its negation, opening an elastic space in which form and dissolution maintain a fast paced, flexible dialectic dance. Mackey tracks a knowledge "gone by the time we heard/ it, galactic light's late arrival/ an acoustic standin, lightyear like/ but shrunken. Moment's remit/ an/ odd sonic perfume." The book itself follows in this pattern of continual departures, sustained in Mackey's remarkable erudition and singular lyric virtuosity." Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize Citation - Lines of Affinity
Review
"Nathan Mackey's ongoing serial projects in poetry and prose over the past three and a half decades arrow among the great wonders of our literary moment." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
Review
"Nathaniel Mackey is a poet of ongoingness involved in a king of spiritualist or cosmic pursuit." Robert Polito Poetry Foundation
Synopsis
A stellar new collection of poems by "the Balanchine of the architecture dance" (), and winner of the National Book Award in poetry.
About the Author
Nathaniel Mackey (b. 1942), is the author of books of poetry, fiction, and criticism, editor of the Literary Jounal Hambone, and radio show host. His collection, Splay Anthem, won the 2006 National Book Award for Poetry. He is also on the Board of Chancellors of the Academy of American Poets, and is Professor of Literature at the University of California at Santa Cruz.